Everybody wants spirituality. To be a good person means to walk in G-d's ways. How does that translate to reality? The only guidebook to spirituality that has stood the test of time is the Hebrew Bible. The Bible says that the Jews will be a light onto the nations. But if you are not a born Jew, you have to convert, which is not so easy!! If you do convert, it is a lot of work to be a Jew (three times a day prayer, keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath).
This blog will show you how to be Jewish without the work!!
Thursday, December 7, 2023
First day of Hanukkah today, Second candle to be lit tonight before Shabbat and the Story of Chanukah and Moment of truth on the Palestinian issue - and The Portion of VayeshevJoseph's Roller Coaster
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
Early Mincha on Friday of Chanukah On the Friday of Chanukah it is recommended to daven Mincha-Gdola so that one would light the candle after Mincha. The reason for this is that Mincha belongs to the previous day while the candle lighting belongs to the coming night. However, one should not daven individually for this reason. So if someone did not daven before candle-lighting he should light candles and run to shul for Mincha (Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim,679 A., Mishna Brura 2 on; Kaf HaChaim 671, 79).
Lighting Chanukah Candles on Saturday night (Motzaei Shabbat) First we daven Ma'ariv and then we light Hanukkah candles. A lot of people make Havdalah before lighting candles, because the Havdalah ends the Sabbath and the Hanukkah candles belong to the next day (TZ 681, 1. Aroh"s b. Ben Ish Hai Vayeshev XXI). Some tend to light candles first, In order to light the candles as close as possible to nightfall, and to delay the Havdalha as much as possible in order to continue to some extent the sanctity of the Sabbath. And even though they had not yet made Havdala, there is no prohibition to light Chanukah candles, because after they said "Ata Honantanu" – the Havdalah in Ma'ariv or: "Blessed is he that he seperates sacred and profane" they are allowed to do work (Shulchan Aruch Rema 681, a). In fact, both practices have a place in Halacha, and any person may choose his own custom.
A Family Hosted on Shabbat A family that is hosted for the whole of Shabbos at another family's house, on that Shabbos the host's home is regarded as their home. Therefore, they should give their hosts a penny on Friday night to buy a share in the candles, and they are not obligates to light their own candles. The Ashkenazi custom is that the guests will light their own candles. If the guests are given a separate apartment, according to all customs they should light candles in a that apartment.
A Family Hosted on Shabbat Returning home on Saturday night A family that is hosted for the whole of Shabbos at another family's house, and intend to return home after shabbos, if they intend to return home right after Shabbat, they should light candles in their homes. If, however, they intend to return later, when people are no longer in the streets, it is better that they would light at their hosts as they did on Friday night. If they do not intend to leave straight after Shabbat, and on the other hand not too late, they can decide where they want to fulfill this Mitzvah, since we can see them as being both at their house and at their hosts' house. (Pniney Halacha Zmanim XIII, 10).
The Portion of Vayeshev Joseph's Roller Coaster
Following Jacob's encounter with his brother Esau and the episode involving Dina, he settles in the land of Canaan. It doesn't take long, however, for Jacob's tranquility to be disturbed by the actions of Joseph and his older brothers.
As a result of his dreams, Joseph is sold into servitude in Egypt and finds himself in the household of an Egyptian officer named Potifar. Joseph is entrusted with the task of managing Potifar's household. Shortly thereafter Potifar's wife tries to seduce Joseph. Joseph flees from her advances, who then tells her husband that it was Joseph who tried to seduce her. Potifar's first thought is to have Joseph executed but, to keep the event from becoming public knowledge he has Joseph sent to prison.
The hesitation of Potifar, the elevation of Joseph to a position of responsibility, his downfall and his time in prison are all alluded to in the letter "vav" in the word "vayehe" (And it came to pass) in the phrase " and it came to pass when his master heard…"(Genesis 39;19) and in the letter "vav" in the word "vayehe" in the phrase "And it came to pass that the Lord was with Joseph…"(Genesis 39;21). This can be seen in the additions at the top and bottom of these letters "vav". (Rokeaich on the Torah)
The Three Musketeers at the Kotel
The Three are Rabbi Yehuda Glick, famous temple mount activist, and former Israel Mk, and then Robert Weinger, the world's greatest shofar blower and seller of Shofars, and myself after we had gone to the 12 gates of the Temple Mount in 2020 to blow the shofar to ask G-d to heal the world from the Pandemic. It was a highlight to my experience in living in Israel and I put it on my blog each day to remember.
The articles that I include each day are those that I find interesting, so I feel you will find them interesting as well. I don't always agree with all the points of each article but found them interesting or important to share with you, my readers, and friends. It is cathartic for me to share my thoughts and frustrations with you about life in general and in Israel. As a Rabbi, I try to teach and share the Torah of the G-d of Israel as a modern Orthodox Rabbi. I never intend to offend anyone but sometimes people are offended and I apologize in advance for any mistakes. The most important psychological principle I have learned is that once someone's mind is made up, they don't want to be bothered with the facts, so, like Rabbi Akiva, I drip water (Torah is compared to water) on their made-up minds and hope that some of what I have share sinks in. Love Rabbi Yehuda Lave.
First day of Hanukkah today, Second candle lit tonight before Shabbat
Hanukkah is observed for eight nights and days, starting on the 25th day of Kislev according to the Hebrew calendar, which may occur at any time from late November to late December in the Gregorian calendar. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, commonly called a menorah or hanukkiah. One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles.
This unique candle is called the shammash (שַׁמָּשׁ, "attendant"). Each night, one additional candle is lit by the shammash until all eight candles are lit together on the final night of the festival.
Other Hanukkah festivities include singing Hanukkah songs, playing the game of dreidel and eating oil-based foods, such as latkes and sufganiyot, and dairy foods. Since the 1970s, the worldwide ChabadHasidic movement has initiated public menorah lightings in open public places in many countries.
Originally instituted as a feast "in the manner of Sukkot (Booths)", it does not come with the corresponding obligations, and is therefore a relatively minor holiday in strictly religious terms. Nevertheless, Hanukkah has attained major cultural significance in North America and elsewhere, especially among secular Jews, due to often occurring around the same time as Christmas during the festive season.
The name "Hanukkah" derives from the Hebrew verb "חנך", meaning "to dedicate". On Hanukkah, the Maccabean Jews regained control of Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple.
Many homiletical explanations have been given for the name:[10]
The name can be broken down into חנו כ״ה, "[they] rested [on the] twenty-fifth", referring to the fact that the Jews ceased fighting on the 25th day of Kislev, the day on which the holiday begins.[11]
חינוך Chinuch, from the same root, is the name for Jewish education, emphasizing ethical training and discipline.
חנוכה (Hanukkah) is also the Hebrew acronym for חנרות והלכה כבית הלל – "Eight candles, and the halakha is like the House of Hillel". This is a reference to the disagreement between two rabbinical schools of thought – the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai – on the proper order in which to light the Hanukkah flames. Shammai opined that eight candles should be lit on the first night, seven on the second night, and so on down to one on the last night (because the miracle was greatest on the first day). Hillel argued in favor of starting with one candle and lighting an additional one every night, up to eight on the eighth night (because the miracle grew in greatness each day). Jewish law adopted the position of Hillel.[12]
Psalm 30 is called שיר חנכת הבית, the "Song of Ḥănukkāt HaBayit", The Song of the "Dedication" of the House", and is traditionally recited on Hanukkah. 25 (of Kislev) + 5 (Books of Torah) = 30, which is the number of the song.
Spelling variations due to transliteration of Hebrew Ḥet Nun Vav Kaf Hey
In Hebrew, the word Hanukkah is written חֲנֻכָּה or חֲנוּכָּה (Ḥănukā). It is most commonly transliterated to English as Hanukkah or Chanukah. The spelling Hanukkah, which is based on using characters of the English alphabet as symbols to re-create the word's correct spelling in Hebrew,[13] is the most common[14] and the preferred choice of Merriam–Webster,[15]Collins English Dictionary, the Oxford Style Manual, and the style guides of The New York Times and The Guardian.[16] The sound represented by Ch ([χ], similar to the Scottish pronunciation of loch) is not native to the English language, although it is native to the Welsh language.[17] Furthermore, the letter ḥeth (ח), which is the first letter in the Hebrew spelling, is pronounced differently in modern Hebrew (voiceless uvular fricative) from in classical Hebrew (voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħ]), and neither of those sounds is unambiguously representable in English spelling. However, its original sound is closer to the English H than to the Scottish Ch, and Hanukkah more accurately represents the spelling in the Hebrew alphabet.[13] Moreover, the 'kaf' consonant is geminate in classical (but not modern) Hebrew. Adapting the classical Hebrew pronunciation with the geminate and pharyngeal Ḥeth can lead to the spelling Hanukkah, while adapting the modern Hebrew pronunciation with no gemination and uvular Ḥeth leads to the spelling Chanukah.[18][19][20]
Festival of Lights
In Modern Hebrew, Hanukkah may also be called the Festival of Lights (חַג הַאוּרִים, Ḥag HaUrim), based on a comment by Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews, καὶ ἐξ ἐκείνου μέχρι τοῦ δεῦρο τὴν ἑορτὴν ἄγομεν καλοῦντες αὐτὴν φῶτα "And from then on we celebrate this festival, and we call it Lights". The first Hebrew translation of Antiquities (1864) used (חַג הַמְּאֹרוֹת) "Festival of Lamps", but the translation "Festival of Lights" (חַג הַאוּרִים) appeared by the end of the nineteenth century.[21]
Historical sources
Books of Maccabees
The story of Hanukkah is told in the books of the First and Second Maccabees, which describe in detail the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem and the lighting of the menorah. These books, however, are not a part of the canonizedMasoretic Text version of the Tanakh (Hebrew and Aramaic language Jewish Bible) used and accepted by normative Rabbinical Judaism and therefore modern Jews (as copied, edited and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era). However, the books of Maccabees were included among the deuterocanonical books added to the Septuagint, a Jewish scholarly Greek-language translation of the Hebrew Bible originally compiled in the mid-3rd century BCE. The Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider the books of Maccabees as a canonical part of the Old Testament.
The eight-day rededication of the temple is described in 1 Maccabees, though the miracle of the oil does not appear here. A story similar in character, and older in date, is the one alluded to in 2 Maccabees[ according to which the relighting of the altar fire by Nehemiah was due to a miracle which occurred on the 25th of Kislev, and which appears to be given as the reason for the selection of the same date for the rededication of the altar by Judah Maccabee. The above account in 1 Maccabees, as well as 2 Maccabees[ portrays the feast as a delayed observation of the eight-day Feast of Booths (Sukkot); similarly 2 Maccabees explains the length of the feast as "in the manner of the Feast of Booths".[27]
Megillat Taanit (1st century) contains a list of festive days on which fasting or eulogizing is forbidden. It specifies, "On the 25th of [Kislev] is Hanukkah of eight days, and one is not to eulogize" and then references the story of the rededication of the Temple.
The Mishna (late 2nd century) mentions Hanukkah in several places, but never describes its laws in detail and never mentions any aspect of the history behind it. To explain the Mishna's lack of a systematic discussion of Hanukkah, Nissim ben Jacob postulated that information on the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it.[ Modern scholar Reuvein Margolies suggests that as the Mishnah was redacted after the Bar Kochba revolt, its editors were reluctant to include explicit discussion of a holiday celebrating another relatively recent revolt against a foreign ruler, for fear of antagonizing the Romans.
Hanukkah lamp unearthed near Jerusalem about 1900
The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is described in the Talmud, committed to writing about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees The Talmud says that after the forces of Antiochus IV had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned. They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this, yet it burned for eight days (the time it took to have new oil pressed and made ready).
The law requires only one light each night per household,
A better practice is to light one light each night for each member of the household
The most preferred practice is to vary the number of lights each night.
Except in times of danger, the lights were to be placed outside one's door, on the opposite side of the mezuza, or in the window closest to the street. Rashi, in a note to Shabbat 21b, says their purpose is to publicize the miracle. The blessings for Hanukkah lights are discussed in tractate Succah, p. 46a.
Megillat Antiochus (probably composed in the 2nd century[36]) concludes with the following words:
...After this, the sons of Israel went up to the Temple and rebuilt its gates and purified the Temple from the dead bodies and from the defilement. And they sought after pure olive oil to light the lamps therewith, but could not find any, except one bowl that was sealed with the signet ring of the High Priest from the days of Samuel the prophet and they knew that it was pure. There was in it [enough oil] to light [the lamps therewith] for one day, but the God of heaven whose name dwells there put therein his blessing and they were able to light from it eight days. Therefore, the sons of Ḥashmonai made this covenant and took upon themselves a solemn vow, they and the sons of Israel, all of them, to publish amongst the sons of Israel, [to the end] that they might observe these eight days of joy and honour, as the days of the feasts written in [the book of] the Law; [even] to light in them so as to make known to those who come after them that their God wrought for them salvation from heaven. In them, it is not permitted to mourn, neither to decree a fast [on those days], and anyone who has a vow to perform, let him perform it
The Al HaNissim prayer is recited on Hanukkah as an addition to the Amidah prayer, which was formalized in the late 1st century.[38]Al HaNissim describes the history of the holiday as follows:
In the days of Mattiyahuben Yohanan, high priest, the Hasmoneanand his sons, when the evil Greek kingdom stood up against Your people Israel, to cause them to forget Your Torah and abandon the ways You desire – You, in Your great mercy, stood up for them in their time of trouble; You fought their fight, You judged their judgment, You took their revenge; You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the evil into the hands of the righteous, the sinners into the hands of those who engaged in Your Torah; You made yourself a great and holy name in Your world, and for Your people Israel You made great redemption and salvation as this very day. And then Your sons came to the inner chamber of Your house, and cleared Your Temple, and purified Your sanctuary, and lit candles in Your holy courtyards, and established eight days of Hanukkah for thanksgiving and praise to Your holy name.
The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus narrates in his book, Jewish Antiquities XII, how the victorious Judas Maccabeus ordered lavish yearly eight-day festivities after rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem that had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.[39] Josephus does not say the festival was called Hanukkah but rather the "Festival of Lights":
Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs, when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship, that they made it a law for their posterity, that they should keep a festival, on account of the restoration of their temple worship, for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name given to that festival. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, and reared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and set guards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura, that it might serve as a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies.
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See you Sunday bli neder, Shabbat Shalom
Instructions on how to light the Hanakuh candles before Shabbat above
We need Mashiach now!
What is disliked by you, don't do to others. Be nice and kind and smile!
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